The fact that they never seemed to be actually....you know...working. How come they were always all present and accounted for? And how come there was never some strange guy who showed up occasionally sleeping it off in the bunkhouse? Who was passing off these mochillas?
I'm guessing because they didn't really have contracts with Russell, Majors, and Waddell. They had contracts with MGM.
Don't get me wrong, I loved that show. I just thought it was kind of funny is all.
I didn't think the research into the show was bad, really. I mean, they kind of had to take some liberties to make the TV show, so you know, you do what you have to do.
For instance: Sweetwater Station. Sweetwater station was in fact a Pony Express station. I just don't think, after poring over various sources over and over again, that it was a home station.
Home stations were, give or take, about a hundred miles apart. We are pretty certain that Three Crossings Station was a home station. In fact, William Cody his own self, who really did ride for the Pony Express, wrote that Three Crossings was his home station. However, Sweetwater appears on maps of the trail to be around 20 miles away from Three Crossings. Not only that, but one source states that it was abandoned in favor of Split Rock in the summer of 1860. So I'm thinking that Sweetwater was probably a relay station. (cool link I found listing all the stations: http://www.nps.gov/archive/poex/hrs/hrst.htm .)
I think the thing that baffles me the most about how the stations were laid out was the fact that a guy could endure having his unit pummelled by a saddle and a running horse for a hundred miles. Just sayin.'
Anyways, just a heads up. I'm thinking of making the posts shorter so it's easier to sneak peeks at them throughout the workday when you are taking a little break. It's been put forth as a suggestion and I think it's a good one. Also, I think I'm going to try to post more often to make up for the shorter posts.
Hope you are enjoying the ride!
4 comments:
That, and they all have their own horses they use- no one elses. they're always other horses in the corral, but you'll be damned if you ever see Jimmy without his buckskin or even worse- The Kid without Katy! *gasp!*
I know, I always thought that was funny. Katy rode for 200 miles straight round trip, eh? Really?
:-DDDD That must be one tough mare.
Jersey is Saint's horse. Swagman is Bender's. There's a few more we haven't seen in the barn that are people's personal horses, but they do not run mail or pull coaches.
If Saint found out his baby was being run down the express line, his head would explode.
Comanche, the horse Jesse rode out on, is a company horse, as is the paint Bender saw tied up outside of Holt's in the first scene where we meet Bender. Those horses cost top dollar, are half broke, and only have to go about ten or fifteen miles in one trip before getting switched out for a fresh one. The boys should be so lucky.
I will say this: after re-watching my season one YR collection, I have to retract my previous statement. They DID work a bit more than I remembered (cut me some slack, it's been a while since I watched this show.)
I do stand by my original opinion of Sheriff Sam Cain, though. He's smokin' hot.
Did they use the same horses for the stagecoach as they did for the mail runs?
They do do some work- but I'm kind of stuck wondering where their paycheck's are all going if they all ride off at once for their next great adventure, leaving behind.... Teaspoon. xD
Hm hm. >.> Unfortunatly (or not! :D), everytime I think of Sam, I think of the episode where Sweetwater has a fair and Sam winds up in the dunktank. :) I'd pay to see him like that again. ;D
Express horses were just that...express horses. They were fast, light, and not very well broken.
Historically, the coaches were not even run by horses. They were run mostly by oxen. In my story, I took an artistic liberty of making them all horses in my story... but they are not the same horses that run express. The freight horses that pull the coaches are big, powerful, well trained team horses.
Yeah, isn't Sam adorable in situations like that? What a man. :-DDD
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